Pricing, Strategy & Business

Lesson 17 of 28

Natural Upsell and Presentation

Pricing, Strategy & Business

Lesson 17 of 28

Natural Upsell and Presentation

Lesson Info

Natural Upsell and Presentation

The presentation is a whole science and of itself and it's it's a continuation of pricing in many regards and yet it's also in many ways its own unique thing you know, the presentation of things goes way back psychologically and the way that we like to interpret information and so what we want to do here and what is a big fail is if we take this wonderful pricing knowledge that we've gotten that we've learned or you take this pricing knowledge that you have already you know this knowledge you have about your clients from the past about what you want for the future and if we then just kind of leave it at that we leave it as a bunch of knowledge and we don't actually put it out on paper in a proper way it's almost like going to the wedding and doing the shoot and then not bothering to edit the photos you know, that's kind of how I feel about like we go in, we capture all these amazing images and we have this amazing experience with our bride or groom or your family porter photographer an...

d you go connect with this this family and you capture all these amazing images or you know all the niches on and on and on and then we don't bother putting the finishing touches on them to present the finished product and we were just give him, you know, nothing that has been worked on we'd feel a lot different about how the product we presented and the presentation wouldn't be there and in the same vein, the presentation of your pricing is very important because it comes down to making sure that it's clear and that it's simple it's easy to understand and so that's again we've gone back and forth on this clarity and simplicity and you know what? It's going to the same themes all over again but let's give you guys some tools that you can actually use when you design your pricing when you design the way you present that pricing and so for the most what we're really talking about here is how you present that to them with its your pdf that you send them hopefully you don't send it to them, hopefully show to them when you meet with them or you show it to them when you're having that skype call with them or that phone call with him whether it's the way you presented online, if you do post your prices online, it's the presentation where they first see your prices displayed that's what we're talk, but we're talking about this year and the first thing I'd like to talk about is a serial position effect the serial position in effect has to do with the idea that a person is more accurately able to recall what they see first and what they see last whenever they're looking at a list where they're looking at an item whenever looking a page there more accurately able to recall what they see first and what they see last and again this is a nif ect that they have a name for it's been studied and it comes down to what we need to learn from this is that people people's first impressions and then what they leave with those are the two things that the most influential in what they see and what they remember and when it comes to what you're showing them they're very they're very interested in seeing the prices are there not when when when you showed in that list ah, whenever it is that you present that to them it's something that really I mean they're looking they're on the edge of their seat they're leaning forward that's something they really want to see, you know, it's not like the prices of the whatever works I'll take whatever you know it's something that they're dying to get their hands on and what they see first and what they see last it's been proven that these are the things that stick out in their minds and what we will learn is we actually can know where more often than not they're gonna look first and where more often than not they're going to look last and we have to understand though that what a person sees first that's their first impression and I know there's an old fashioned saying that says you can't judge a book by its cover but we all know that that's almost said, you know, tongue in cheek now as in so many ways what we see first and our first impression that's also a little bit of where sticker shot come from it comes from sarah shot comes from what we initially see and we don't take the time to process it we don't take the time to understand all the nuances of what we're getting of what's involved in that price and we're sticker shocked we're like oh and that's again going back to that really going back to partially the serial position in effect of what we see first is part of what sticks out to us and then last and of course it's always and said that a good conclusion is equally as important as all this different content that you present if you don't tie it up for everyone that you just leave them with a whole big mess of information well what we show them last what they see last what they walk away with understanding last is going to have a very deep impact on them, you know and so it's what they see first and what they see last that they remember the most that's what the serial position in effect teaches us another effect and I have to admit I really don't know how to say this I think it's the von restaurant effect I'm not really sure I probably what you that I never met mr von restaurant you know, so I don't really have never asked him how to pronounce his name but the basic idea of this effect and what he figured out is it's a person's ability to more accurately recall distinctive items from a list or from a from a set from from a criteria from page such as those items and I'm just going to read it right here that of what the definite isn't those items that are presented in such a way where they somehow violate the prevailing context of the overall presentation in other words things that stick out you know, that's basically saying things that stick out we remember better and we need to that's a that's a great prince what because really the von restaurant effect is definitely applicable to what we're doing we can't always guarantee what they're going to see first we can't always guarantee what they're going to see last, but we can certainly control what sticks out. We can certainly control what sticks out of our price list of our presentation and what sticks out and what makes itself available to us what what shows is what people remember and you know when you're presented with a whole lot of information most of it, which doesn't really necessarily make a lot of sense and is on ly intriguing because they need to make a purchase from it not because they want to understand it necessarily not because they want to learn it, not because, you know, they want to digest it, mainly because they do I want to figure out what they need to know so they could make a purchase with it. When they're presented with all this information, we can utilize things like what stands out to help them out again? I'm going to take us back to the original premise of all the different things we've been talking about when it comes to pricing and when it comes to presentation, it's the exact same thing we want to help our clients out in understanding, understanding better on how to get to what they want to buy, you know, they come to us knowing subconsciously and consciously, they come to us knowing the different things that they want, and we can drill down and understand those things as well. And so proper presentation involves again highlighting the different things that we know they want, so it makes it easier for them to buy them. They want to get overwhelmed and inundated with all the information. Even if you have a very, very simple price list, it still is a lot of information, especially for somebody you know, it's like going and looking at buying a car or seen the way that mercedes presented their information, I thought it was very well done, but I didn't understand I'm not really a car guy, and I didn't really understand a lot of the definitions they were talking about, you know? I understand horse powers and those sorts of things, but a lot of the nuances of the engine size engine ties that the rims, you know, that all that stuff, it kind of was, you know, it reminded me of what our clients probably go through when they're trying to discern what all the different things that we offer them our, you know, it's like two, the car manufacturer like, well, how could you not? I mean, engine size come on like that's, like the basis of what we do, and I'm like, well, if you're right, I probably should know about that, but I don't really, and even if I know a little bit about, I know that two point four is smaller than, you know, three point eight those kinds of things, but that's about all that I really have to grass and to grapple with, and our clients are as equally confused and almost overwhelmed by when we present them with pricing and no matter what nurturing whether in fine art whether we're in boudoir whether in weddings whether now when landscapes there's some terminology that no matter what is unavoidable and good pricing presentation allows you to kind of cut through that and show exactly what you want to and the von roster if effect of on rescue if effect again it's one of those too I bet it talks about highlighting it talks about doing things like letter box and it talks about bringing things out and making them stand out and so that naturally is where I will go things that naturally stand out are I will naturally go to and that's good because you want them to be drawn to the things that we want to provide them you know we talked about the middle package sure you're starting to see where we're going with this we want to do things you want to use these effects these techniques to bring to light the middle package a spot they already want to land and now we can combine that with good pricing and good presentation design to meet their needs design clutter um this is an effect so but it is something that we need to keep in mind is that you know they call this when you're working with programmers and you're designing something you know like a software services call this feature creep you know, feature creep is where you just start you start with an idea and then you're like, oh, I could also do this though and she add that and you're like, well, we could also do this and so we had that and we could also do this and so we had that in it pretty pretty soon without even knowing it you have this idea now it's got sixteen other legs to it and now a sudden this project that was going to take one week or whatever it is two weeks now it could take a month and a half and I think yes that's feature create what we get design freak we get the same exact thing it's like well, I have this and I have this it's all laid out really well but I could also throw this in and well what if they also want to buy that would cover or what if they also want to, you know, buy that extra large alam that I normally don't talk about? What if they want to buy that that that eighty inch by one hundred sixty inch print? You know, I'm not saying that we don't want to sell that what I'm saying though is that we don't want to let our design get cluttered and it tends to do that because we tend to just throw things in there you know? We're so careful about the design element of our photography we aren't necessarily as careful about the design elements of our price sheet and that's important because that's the representation of how someone khun beira photography they have you know pricing is the way that people purchase what we do and the pricing example the pricing presentation that you give them is what they see and it's what the eyes see to use toe by your work your service your product and design clutter exists it's very common and it it almost takes that knee jerk reaction you have to have a need your cracks is no I will not do that no I will not do that does it have to be in there and we're going to talk about that does it have to be in there? We'll talk about that more but design clutter is common so think in terms of simple I think in terms of clean you know simple and clean simple is is basically, you know, trying to reduce it down to its it's most simple form its most basic form clean would be you know, not adding things for the sake of adding them that would be busy that would be complicated clean is removing things that don't need to be there les is truly more when it comes to your price sheet that comes your prices less I truly believe is truly more and again the more you show them the less they remember the more you show them the less that they'll remember you know if you're going to have three words on an entire page chances are really good when they said that page they're going to like wow there's three words on this page chances are very high there remember those three words and the more words you put on there the less likely that they're going to remember anyone of those words you know you put a hole a whole you know hole fill the whole page with words like in a book and obviously you know there's very rare for someone actually look a whole page of a book and bill to recite it back to us you know it's kind of funny analogy but I bet you if they're only three words in that page almost everybody could recite those three words back to us and so less is truly more and we have to show them what we have to show them you know there's certain things we have to show them it's not like we can just put three words on a price you can call the day we have to show them our prices so that's what we have to lean on some of these effects and some of these theories and some of this psychology to make sure that our price list is as streamlined as it possibly can be does that make sense to many questions right off the bat here silence I think that's good all right we'll keep going here we're gonna keep talking about let me start showing you some of the psychological different studies that have been done this is a fun one this is courtesy of jacob neal said at the nielsen norman group and what he did is he put eye tracking visualization on the way that people read this's actually I guess you would call maybe a heat map of the way that people read three different three different pages on a website the three different pages are un about us section there on the left ah product page there in the middle and then to the right is we recognize a google search and the more red you know that you get the more time that some of these spent on that portion and the yellow represents a medium amount of time and then the blue represents somebody barely looking at it and where you don't see any color at all nobody even bothered looking I love this I love this study it's so fascinating and what jacob nielsen really figured out is that at the end of the day people read in the pattern of an f so people start by reading from the upper left to the upper right is what he found and you know obviously there's probably some some alternative theories this is one that I think is pretty definitive and I like to talk about and the ones that very don't vary by a whole lot you know, this one talks about how we read that top bar first we read that top bar across the web site whether it's you know, in this case on the right you know, the google listing we read that top option c see how in the upper right it does pick it up seeing the operator does pick up that they did read that upper right section that little add up there in the upper right of google the google page we can look across at the product page in the middle and they can see that all the stuff in the top is read people definitely die elin and read all the red if we look at the far left image which is the about us section you know, people read the top line there all the way across and then people scan down and they need a second line so every second line is they go down and we can see that second line there again on the far right the google page you know, people read the second line almost as much as they read the first line. If if not more people are on the on the product page there in the middle they really focused on once they got below the graphic they started reading again and they read across there on and then the idea is that as we go on, we started lose a little bit of interest way start to kind of get trying to figure out if this is what we really want to read or not, and that's why that trail off happened is really the bottom of that f is that trail off it's like, do I really care about any squirrel? You know, I have court, but I really care about this. No, I'll move on and that's, what most people end up end up doing, and we kind of see the most pronounced version of that in the product page there in the middle is that kind of trail off goes down and then it's like cam board, it happens from the far left and the about us section where it's all text it's like, ok, I'm reading, I'm really interested in sort of I'm back interested again, okay, okay, okay, okay, forget it. And, you know, you can see that if you know if if you're the guy who gets mentioned in the fourth paragraph, their view about us, you don't get really a lot of air time. You might think I'm on the first page, but, man, I just don't really get much air time there. You also see, by the way, how important is the rank and not just the top page of google, but really the top one, two or three of google, I guess is what really can learn from that is that, you know, people read a lot about the first. They read a lot about the second. The third gets a little bit air time, the force we got a spot of read the fifth, we have a spot of yellow, and by the time you got down to the sixth option there, I mean, you know, it's pretty, uh, pretty slim pickings. I love this because, you know, this isn't just a study of how people read web pages or how people read about us sections. The study of how people read in general he comes, shows the same similar patterns and really the concept that we want to get across that kind of people read and then trail off, you know, they read in the trail off if there's another theory, I didn't have a graphic for it, but it's not a theory that says that people read and they actually go to the top right corner of the page first, and they read that that's the most important thing is the top right corner of the page. And they kind of scan actually backwards. They kind of go back to the start. No, read what kind of zigzag down and read again and then trail off somewhat similar in it. You know, he would jacob nielsen maybe talks about every left to right, and that theory says they read from the top down to the left, but the point of all of this is the kind of showcase what's, important and prominent page what you put the bottom of the page is not going to read as much as what you put at the top of the page. You know, I think we can all agree on that from this studying from some of the other studies that we've seen, and I think we know that about ourselves. I think we know that by the time we get down to the bottom of a page, especially a meaty page, like a price page we are, we're definitely had. We have a lot on our minds at that point, and we're not apt to process nearly as quickly when it comes to all those things that are down at the bottom. No, because it's really about not just about reading it, but we have to retain it. We have to process it, we have to go through our brains and kind of have to kind of think on a little bit, and we're talking about clients and how they're going to how they're going to interpret what we present to them. We need to make sure that we keep these things in mind the most important things we need to be at the top, you need to be over the top. We avoid design clutter, you know, we need to avoid, you know, having too much. We need to take advantage of all the things like letter boxing and basically bringing certain things to light. We understand the first thing they read, the last thing they read are the things that stand out the most. But we also need to understand how they look at the page, how they read, and these studies can really shed a lot of light on it for us. Let's, look at another study that jacob nielsen did again from the nielsen norman group. And so what he did is he had this first paragraph there. He calls it the promotional writing. He goes to the control and basically that's kind of he has everyone read that and what it is it's, the paragraph talking about he's talking about it's like a nebraska tourist. On board, you know something about, you know, the top five spots where people want to go to in nebraska or where people typically going and so it's a it's, a it's, a well written paragraph, it highlights, you know, the different things in nebraska on goes through that the five areas that people visited the most when they came and visited nebraska, it gives us the number of visitors each of those from, you know, three hundred fifty five thousand visitors all way down to about twenty eight thousand visitors on dh it's you know, it's about a paragraph long, and when you look at it, you're kind of like that's, you know, it's sze quick to the point don't have that much in terms of numbers in terms of, you know, a swell it's descriptive, but what he then went on to do is come up with three I'm only showing you two here I'll show you another one of the next page you came with three different versions of that where he did specific things to those versions, and then he tested that he had you read that version a little bit later, and he had you see, he tested you to see if you remembered that content any better or any worse compared to the first compared to the verbose version, if you will and the concise text. So what he did there was he just really, really basically got the word count in about half, cut it in half, and if you look over the right there, people remembered the key points of that fifty eight percent better. So in other words, people remember the most important things of what you're trying to tell them. Fifty eight percent better if you just use half a number of words, you know, that's what this can tell us and of course that's not across the board. It's a general rule of thumb that you know, it's, just another general rule of thumb for us to look at let's, go down to the next one scannable layout so she's in the same exact same text, he says as the control condition as one of the top but it's in a layout that is better facilitated for scanning or, you know, kind of quick reading, quick understanding and that one actually got forty seven percent mohr memory of the context and of the facts than the top one did in the controlled in. So we can already see here that really you get about fifty, forty seventh, fifty eight percent better recollection of the fax when we just pull out words and when we make it easier to read you know it's actually easier to read what it's in those bullet points by presentations you see somebody bullet points out of me I'm not putting up sentences you know, the only sentences I put up our quotes and I don't put up you know, a paragraph describing what I want you to retain I just put up a couple of bullet points and I talk about it but I want you I don't need to remember every single word I say I need to remember the most important elements of the words I say and that's why I put a bullet points for in my presentation that's why when we go to presentations it's common to see bullet points rather than paragraphs you know it would be go see somebody with paragraphs for like to read all that come on and just tell me it's gonna want to read it so that the study goes on and on this third one is interesting he's a subjective objective language so instead of making it sound like nebraska's the most amazing place in the world he just makes it sound like you know I'm just gonna tell you what it is nebraska has several attractions not going to make it sound you know nebraska is filled with internationally recognized attractions I'm just going to tell you how it is so it's very objective text and people remembered in this case only twenty seven percent better so you know, he kind of pulled out some of the big words some of the boastful words, some words that has subjectivity to them and what did you find you found while people retain twenty seven percent better now here's the fun part combine version using all three improvements in writing style together concise, scannable and objective tax and people remembered one hundred and twenty four percent more information, one hundred twenty points that's more than double the information was remembered when people when he went through and he he pulled and made all the writing more concise when he made it scannable and easy to read and understand, and you made it super objective and didn't over fluff it. Now how many of us photographers I can't tell you how often I see it? People send me their pricing pds and the first three pages are life story about why their photographer and they tell their whole story about why they're in this, about why they love photography about why they love their clients about all those things, and don't get me wrong. All of that is awesome. All of that information is great, but not for a price list when somebody looks at a price list they're interested in knowing about buying, they're interested in potentially making a purchase and so that's not the right time to present them with that information not only is it not the right time to present them with that information but we find is that it also isn't able to be retained people aren't able to retain that information when we when we put in all this text when we make it hard to read and buy hard to read I mean not scannable when we don't take advantage of the different effects that we know to be true that things that stand out are things that the things that people remember we don't do this when we just write a bunch of text in our price list when we I'll take it even further when you offer something like a canvas print and then you go into a long description about the canvas print and it's got all this descriptive text and why it matters and why it's so important and why you love it and why clients something stuff and really what we're seeing is that people don't retain any of it that much better including what you're actually trying to sell them it's not like people are looking at it going okay let me take in the product and then if I don't understand enough I will go ahead and add more I'll go ahead and read more I'll go ahead and try to understand it further what it really is his people are actually turned away from the product in general if it is if it doesn't look appealing to read people don't want to bother trying to understand it it's like, oh, I can't even bother I have that all the time sometimes I'll be working with people with their pricing consultations and they'll send you send me their priceless stuff and I put it up like, I don't have time to read through this right now I'll read through later and I'm oh man that's you know, that's that's a great indication right there on dso we need understand that text gets in the way it gets in the way I'm not average I'm not saying that text is not good it's just not good on your price list I'm not saying that descriptions aren't good, I'm saying that bullet points or better in your price list, I'm not saying that fluffing things up isn't good I'm just saying that objective language is better on your pricing list. I'm saying that because mr jacob nielsen told me way have a good friend down in san diego we went to new zealand with um sarah, I want museum with him at the end of last year and I have a very sarcastic sense of humor and my poor wife is always like live u k why do you play when you play jokes something so much? Why are you always joking with me and stuff? And for better or for worse, this couple he also has a very sarcastic and seemed so we'll get going and we'll start giving, you know, my wife for his wife a hard time about something and inevitably, sarah who's so analytical and just wants to be heard, and she really wants everyone to understand everything that she's sharing so start describing this entire thing like no here's, what I'm trying to say, you know, and it's so funny because brian is a phrase he says thirties, like sarah, when you're explaining you're losing and so here goes, oh god, I hate that, but see it's kind of like all you're right, and you know what, guys, if we have to explain our products in full detail, we're losing if we have to write three pages of text about who we are and why we love photography, we're losing, we've already got him, we've already won, they already interested in in us. And so what I want to get across to you is that from a design perspective, we don't need tio we don't need to go on and on about that, we can be minimalistic in it, and it actually helps their retention a significant amount. Let's talk about design from a perspective of what's possible versus what's necessary now, when we go into design, we oftentimes get caught up and putting everything on that piece that pdf if you will call it a pdf for the sake of it, we get caught up and putting everything on it. It's possible everything. Is it possible to fit it in there? Yes, put it in then I want to make sure they come by it. You know, I want to make sure they can buy. And what I'd encourage you to do is to think about in terms of what needs to be shown don't think about in terms of what can be shown. Think about it in terms of what needs to be shown. What has to be on that page? What? Fundamentally? That we cannot show that pricing. Pdf if that's not on there, we have to show them that you know and really that starts to open up a whole new world. If we on ly show what needs to be showed that stage, we can really help our clients in their clarity and in their understanding. And again, part of this is just a personal preference he saw in my some of my price sheets from before that. I don't really like to show a lot of information right when they're booking. It's not it's not be transparent if they ask about it or if they're interested and I can tell they're interested. I have no problem sharing it but it's more because I don't want to overwhelm them with too much information because I know that for the most part, most of my clients are interested in canvas prints when they're thinking about booking that's something that might come out when we're talking after their wedding or after their engagement session and it's definitely something that I'd like to see them, you know, you guys know my feelings about campus prince I'd love to see them by a canvas print it's not that I don't want them to have one but it's that I'm trying to show what's necessary, I'm trying to meet where they're at and meet them where they're at and only show them what's necessary, not everything that's possible, and if we put everything is possible, it is a slippery slope because it could go on and on and on. I like to use an example here when I think of content marketing and a lot of a lot of companies now are really doing content marketing well in that when you sign up to be a part of a news letter, when you sign up to be a part of something and they track what you click on and what you don't click on and they can see what you click on so they send you an email and they have three different links in there they know which links you clicked on they know how many times you clicked on that link they know which thank you clicked on first, which link you clipped on second, and if you did click on a third link which when you clicked on third, but the interesting thing apart thing about it, the interesting part about it is that they show you different information that she sent you different e mails based entirely on what you do with the first email you get if you click on an email let's say that you were signed up for my newsletter ivan newsletter that I send out usually once a week or every other week on day it's just you know it's in the realm of business and I just send out free business tips and tricks and I have a newsletter I don't go into depth on this I don't have the time or the software to do it, but let's say I sent out a newsletter and it was on pricing and I had a link that talked about my how to set up a package list I had a link that talks about how to set up in all the car list I have a link that talks about how to set up in extras list now what I could do and what content markers from big companies do is if you click on the package list, they put you into a whole new channel of e mails if you click on the ala carte list that puts you into a whole new channel of e mails and what they do is they only show you what you want to be shown that's the root of that they could just send you everything they could say what you signed up, I'm gonna send you a package going to send you a card I'm going to say the extras we'll send it all, but they know that that's not the best strategy because then it's just going to overwhelm you and you're going to hit that unsubscribe button and that's going to be that we'll look at that as a microcosm of what we're doing our clients when we meet them, they just subscribe to our newsletter and what which we could ask him some questions and we can determine based on what they've told us and based on what we've asked, we can determine which we want to show them, but if we show them everything, they're going to hit that unsubscribe button, they're not going to book us and that's why content market is really taking off right now because it is proven that it really works that you meet what people want with what you give them and so I want to impart on you guys to show what you need to not what you want to only show what you need to don't think about this in terms of what's possible to show, because that would just be a slippery slope for you that'll go on and on and really on and on and on and on. All right, what are some common problems we have in common problems that we see quite commonly? I'm gonna go through some that I see all the time because I see a lot of priceless, and what I really see is that at the end of the day, one of the first things we can look at is too much text text is the number one problem whether it's in a description that you provide on your way in, you know, whether the text is about yourself, where the text a description of who, what your company is, how was founded, why you love photography, maybe it's too much texting, describing the products. So when you're describing your products, we're using a lot of text, maybe it's a description, after all your products, where he described what it takes to book you. Man oh man when someone's ready give you money and you hand in a two page itemized list of how it is how how they need to do what they need to do the book you oh boy that's not good you know I mean when they're right when they're ready to give you money I mean you just got to get out the way that you just got to be like ok I'm not gonna put it any barriers and you know it goes on some these price sheets talk about you know here's how you book us and it has all of these things listed out it's well intended it really is this what I get why you guys were doing it I get why that's the tendency it's what I want to provide it with as much information as possible I understand that all I'm trying to point out as it flies in the face of what we know about humans and their interaction with these things and how they interpret it and how they remember it and how they process it so it's well intended and I would never say that it's not well intended that's I'm not accusing anyone of anything I'm not coming down on anybody who does that what I'm trying to do is just shed light on why I don't think it's the best strategy for when somebody is looking your price list they want or are interested in buying you know and they want to move forward in a transaction and so what I want you guys to understand is that text is probably the number one problem that I see I'm hard to read font this is another problem font that's cute or artistic or swirly or all the different things that thought khun b and I know it sounds basic, but if it's hard to read, we're going to move on from it we're not going to stick with it we're not going to try to understand it and sometimes I've seen where it's really hard to read it's like, you know, oh, I just can't I can't understand how you know how it how it related, I can't see the whole word that is that an answer is that a q is that you know and so hard to read font is another big one, you know I don't use font that it's hard to understand make it simple make it scannable for them to go through hard to read and this goes back to something that similar but hard to read, you know often times people will put a picture behind their text and the picture has a lot of contrast black and white and so they're text might be black and in the picture goes black and, you know has a lot of different colors in it and so parts of the picture are very hard to read and I'm sorry not parts of picture parts of the text are very hard to read or sometimes we use a gray color up against a white background by the way do you guys you guys know that different monitors read different colors different ways you know and so I was looking when we're finishing off the redesign of the website jared bombing dot com I was looking at one of the monitors and was like that's not the way we designed it and they're like well the great gray is great but gray is different on every single monitor you know and I was like oh hi here I am victim of my nose I don't think I'm going to get up there and talk about you know like I couldn't read it now on my monitor at home it was great it was a nice starks saw great but I have a nice apple cinnamon displaced it up and you know that interprets cars look better I was looking at my pc somewhere I think was that maybe remember where it was but it was you know, like an older monitoring you just couldn't even see the text because it was basically not a thing it's a great backdrop was there with the white backdrop as like oh that's exactly what I'm talking about I'm so glad I check that I was fell victim my my own my own advice and so you know don't put that text up against a picture go the extra mile if you have to put that banner behind it you know you some design elements to help it out don't use text that's too close to your background color might look great on your monitor but think about it is it kind of on the edge of what's acceptable because if you can't read it that's just it's easier to move along and it's harder to kind of understand and we don't want to get in the way of that we don't want to get in the way of a booking that was meant to happen explanation of things this has to do with the text but I do think it's I do think it's different on a different level because there's really two problems when you going to explain everything and one of those is that it's too much text and one of those is just the fact you're explaining and that goes back to we're talking about when kind of the analogy I use when you're explaining when you're when you're talk you know when you're having explain yourself you're losing and again at this point if they aren't sold on why they should get something not on what they should get but on why they should get it remember when all the way back to day one if they're not sold on why they should buy it and why it has value to them explaining to them on the priceless is not going to win him over if you couldn't talk about or showcase the you know, the why of the product of the album of the can this print of just the package in general, then having a really nice, eloquent explanation of it isn't going to do it either. So I question not only how much text goes into it and how it makes it harder to read what that package is, but I also question, you know, from a design standpoint, having text to try to explain something when really what we're trying to do is convince them that it's good for them to buy it, and that's not the place to convince them of that we don't want to commit some of that we want them to feel that why at a different point in time, right on the price sheet it's really all about the what here's this here's that here's this here's that if do you have any questions, I'd love to answer them, but I'm just trying to show you exactly what is available to you, not a similar structure, so not following the same syntax, contextual structure or design structure, and I see this a lot in the way that stars pricing comes in there, you know, they're listening coverage in their packages in the first one says six hours and the next one in the next package says eight hours of coverage in the next one says nine and you like, I think it says nine h r s instead of nine h o urs, very small and minor, but these things stand out to people they stand out to people and they really come across is unprofessional, and you don't want that. You don't want anything coming across as unprofessional. We also have problems with the way that things were structured on the page, you know? We'll put one package here, one package here and then one package here, and it doesn't really make sense for us as viewers, you know, or we'll list out albums up here, and then we'll list out paradigms down here, and, you know, and so things that we think should be grouped together are grouped together so it can really come out in a lot of different mechanisms and why different manners, you know, it's, not just in the way that the word things it's also in the placement of things, you know, we want to use proper wording. If we're going to call it six hours of coverage from one photographer, then we want to always call it x hours of coverage from ex photographer you know, if we're talking about her album, we don't want to say on eight bite out with thirty, you know, thirty pages and then go on to say ten by ten album, is it different? Does have thirty pages? Is it a whole different kind of album is the same album? I don't know now I have question now I'm confused, I'm confused. I'm not as apt to book, and so we want to use the same text and the same contextual text that we use one he's the same context in a way that you place things so it flows nicely and it's a problem sometimes, you know, we'll get caught up, we won't double check that will triple check that kind of stuff and slips through the cracks and looks unprofessional, weird names for things. So this is also something that I, you know, this is more really a matter of opinion. I can't really say there's any presentation theory or psychological theory about this, so I want you to think that there's some psychological, you know, explanation for this, but just not giving your you're not giving names to things that don't necessarily need to have weird names. Is one thing and then being careful about the names you select for your products and for your services I'll never forget when I was working the photographer and they have named their pact is the f two point eight g f four and f five point six I was like why do you need it that you're like? Well, I thought it was kind of cool and those cameron all that kind of stuff said, but your your client doesn't your clients not a photographer like oh and thought about that like I'm like, yeah, I have to point out I mean, I have a hard time describe what that is, two photographers and I'm a photographer there look at that and say what I have to point I don't get it like, is that okay? It's not two point eight is that twenty eight hundred dollars? Is that a cute way of saying twenty no it's now there's a you know and that's a great example because it's so obvious to us for like, well, you know, but we do that with a lot of things. You know? We have a lot of the things that we come up with he's really creative and by the way, I'm the first to admit I don't have a good name for the packages I don't know what to call them I really don't you saw there was like, what starting package middle pack is. Top package. Come one to three. We've done it all. Don't get me wrong. We want dance names. At one point, we had the twist. That sounds like a pretty basic dance. Right? So we called it the twist package, and then I think the middle package was the next package up was the miranda, which I misspelled for the first three his head on the package. That's awesome, really well done. Then I had the tango. Obviously, tango is, um, or elegant and expensive dance than the twist of the meringue gay this is these are the things I'm thinking. And then from the tango we went onto the waltz. Now the wall says that's a that's a good package you have is your top package, right? The walls. It sounds so elegant in one night, but you can see I'm already having to explain my way through which package should be ranked higher, in which one shouldn't again when you're explaining you're losing and I eventually realized, you know, when a bride you want to sit there and go, honey, which package we're looking at it's the tango that was the twist which one's more expensive I don't know are you sure was the tango I don't know I don't you know I mean like it just wasn't translating it really wasn't and and so I don't pretend to have the right answer here, but what I am saying is that if you have to air on one side air on the side of simplicity you know, don't overcomplicate it don't make it too complex don't don't make it too tricky you have to explain it to yourself you have to explain it to your client it's probably a little bit too tricky for you okay, so here's an example of our price list of, you know, the priceless said all show people on dh season the same packages that we talked about earlier, so I'll just take a little time to highlight that, you know, to be the pdf that we that we might show to them that we might demonstrate them and I'll just kind of highlight the things about it that I think utilize the different theories, the different effects, the different the different contextual examples that we've had. So for starters, we have everything listed in the end the everything listed that we've determined over the years that they really want to get their question answered about right away we list that up top now again when you streamlined your your price sheet to include on lee of things that are necessary, that kind of means that everything is necessary and so for example, we went back and forth with with should those digital natives there listen down in the bottom, right? Should that be at the upper right? Because we know they read more in the upper right, but they were like well before they want the digital negatives they need to know what's included with every single package we really went back and forth this week, I actually tested it and went back and forth, you know? And in the end I put the digital magazine on the bottom now that's an important part digital natives or this much, but they're complemented with any album process that's an important feature, but at the end of the day, people are we're more concerned with what they got with every package than they were with an extenuating circumstance, albeit a very important must have for them. So when you stripped your priceless down on lee, the things that are essential, the problem is that everything is essential. But when you concede here is the packages are listed on the left and we've letter box to the entire package set over there to kind of identify for them, read this first, you know it be a shame if you wouldn't read all coverage includes before you even knew that packages were listed off there on the left you know and if that happens at least you can get back to it quickly because it's been letter box and then we've also grade we put a great background behind the package I want them to book the middle package and so the first thing that you see when you go to this page is arguably either the photograph or the package that says thirty seven hundred dollars you know and that's exactly what I wanted to see and we also know that from their reading patterns that if they go look at that first they're probably going to go up back across the page to the upper right and read what coverage includes and so I can almost be rest assured that they're going to get the most important package and what that package includes right off the bat and that's really important I want to really maximize what they can read because I know that I have only a short period of time maybe to grab onto what they're what they're doing here. And so again, what are some of the things we talked about? We talked about about highlighting about making some standout we've gone through that we also talk about how simple this is and I really honestly I don'twant teo I don't want to put any extra words in there that I don't have to you know every single word in their accounts and that's why it even says to instead of t w o for photographers because to the number is easier than to t w o again air you're wrong if you do t w you know got it all seriously it is all coming down to how you maximize what you present, you know? But these are the things I'm thinking of and that's what I want you to kind of be understand of is what I'm thinking of also I've made sure there's a very clean and simple design and not a lot going on in here there isn't a whole lot in front of that picture there, you know? That picture is just very, very basic it's got my signature up at the top it's got packages that doesn't have descriptions of anything doesn't say what the premium mountains are doesn't say who they were made by doesn't it doesn't talk about you that it's not the real thing here that's important it's just that I want to be very careful with what I show them because I don't want to overwhelm them with with too many options or with toomey descriptive words and text you know you can see that even I didn't bullet point it's just a bullet point listed what they get with all coverage the packages are listed out in just bullet point coverage there you'll notice also that the way that I talk about different things is pretty similar, with only one exception and that's in the forty, eight hundred our package, I say, a buy premium leather album, and I say premium albums over in the price list, and that was done cautiously because I just wanted them to know there's a leather bound down, but I don't want to become obsessed with it again that's kind of breaking the rule a little bit, I get that that's my one rule breaking here really? If you have one spot, I broke the robe, I didn't consciously I didn't know in the rule I was breaking, you know? And so everything else, though, is very simple text it's not really descriptive it's not over the top, it doesn't go on, and I don't rely on the descriptions of those things to sell exactly what that is, you know? So really what we see here in this isn't by any stretch of imagination there's absolutely no reason for you to copy this directly. I'm not trying to say this is the only way to present your pricing. This is one of many ways percent your pricing. This is one of a whole lot of different ways to present your pricing, but it's one way that just incorporates all of what we talked about you're incorporates all the design elements that we talked about and that's what I really want tio showcase so before we keep going, I want it I want to work with some of you and in your price is I want to bring up some your prices and I want to talk with you on it. I think I'm gonna give you guys the option right off the bat to kind of identify yourselves. Oh man, I didn't think about that, but now that we've sat through this, you know, so what I really think we should do? It is kind of go through a few priceless here and talk about him and see what we can do with it before we do that, though any questions out there from from our online audience about what we just kind of went through? Yeah, well, personally, I just think it's so cool I didn't realize how important it was to have your design and presentation down first and foremost before going forward and actually talking to your client and presenting them your prices. It is crucial that you know, and I think he said earlier, you know now, knowing this like the back of your hand or advice, basically knowing it is that as much as your camera it's definitely just one tool that you need to have down that's super cool like a quick clarification question on from pro photographer what funds do you recommend? Andy's bold text or large font for emphasis on any areas of your pricing sheet? Um personal favorite fun is euro style okay, good one bronson found that when many years ago I like it a lot I think we've used a lot of not sure if that's your that's not your style actually, but I do like that one a lot um yeah holding in large text different colors for specific texts those are all examples of exactly we're talking about making things stand out so that's all those are all great examples if you bold certain words you know you can see here that certain words are a little bit darker the headings a little bit darker I want those two stand out that's holding you know, making the fonts are the presentation different sizes those are all great things you can do and yet font color that's another thing that's great the color of the font and these are all examples really if we go back to that bond roster of effect restaurant if I can I don't know it's something I think it's german on, but to go back to that we can really look at exactly what we're trying to do we're trying to make something stand out from all the rest were trying to make it more visible than the rest and so you can use all those different techniques okay, great way to quick question from sidekick steve so the prices are in an a sending order and he's previously heard descending order and I think you mentioned earlier about putting your top package for most expensive packages the top do you can you just clarify that? Of course you know, what I talked about is that I really don't have a preference either pressing theory doesn't really are you one way or the other there's different things for each and at the end of the day, what I what I might recommend what I was saying is that I think if you're in the middle toe lower end of your market, you might want to start by putting your lower price package first if you're in the middle toe higher end of your market, I think it's great to start with your highest price package first, and I kind of identified in the win that really we're right in the middle and so it's almost like flip a coin there. You know, bronson's pricing here is he's right in the middle really in san diego and so really at that point, like flip a coin and figure out which one you want you want to land on, but you know, if you're if you're starting off in the lower part of your market I think it's. Great. I think you probably should start off by hitting, you know, the lower price. First, if you're booking, you know the top end of your market. If that's your clientele there's absolutely nothing wrong with putting that top package first, and kind of setting forth that that tone to the price list.

Class Description

Join photographer and business expert Jared Bauman for an introduction to creating, running, and growing a successful photography business.

Throughout this class, Jared will break down the process of starting and running a successful photography business into clear, simple steps. You’ll develop a foundation for your business based on your unique skill set, values, and vision as a photographer. Jared will guide you through each stage of an effective consultation with a prospective client and teach you how to approach sales with confidence. He’ll also show you how to maximize your profit with effective pricing strategies. You’ll learn about the importance of a referral-driven client base and create marketing strategies for attracting and keeping the right client engaged with your brand.

Whether you’re just beginning to approach photography as a career or a long-time professional photographer looking to grow your brand, you’ll come away from this course with the inspiration and knowledge to create a business that’s just as dynamic as your photographs.

a Creativelive Student

Eventhough I'm not a photographer I got so much value from this course. The pricing strategies and the concept of specialism apply to any business and made a huge difference in how I get and work with my clients right now. I recommended the course to several of my friends and would recommend it to anyone who's stuck in their business doing things they don't enjoy and gets little money for it. Fantastic job, Jared, thank you!

JenVazquezPhotography

I'm just so blown away with Jared and this course and his experts that he brought in. It is truly A-Z of running a photography business answering the question what to charge and how to show it to get the most purchases. He spends a whole day on this question. The first day all about you and the &quot;authentic&quot; you so you can attract like minded individuals. The last day, in person consult and sales. This is my first purchase through Creative Live, even though I've watched many classes free during the live taping. I'm so happy I did it. I'm going to watch it over and over again. WELL worth the cost!! My review? PURCHASE NOW while it's on sale!!

Jennifer

I see another reviewer touched base on exactly what I was going to say. I was hopeful this course would discuss portrait photography pricing, and not just wedding photography pricing strategies. Since I don't shoot weddings, the 'packages' discussed was completely invaluable info to me. I can translate the concept, however, but it still would have been nice to know that this course was geared towards wedding pricing etc. With that said, I don't regret purchasing this course and still learned plenty from it. I enjoy Jared's teaching style tremendously.